For many languages, such as Chinese and Japanese, text can be phonetically entered with one writing system and converted for display in a second writing system. For example, Pinyin is a phonetic system for transcribing Mandarin Chinese using the Latin alphabet. In a Pinyin transliteration, the phonetic pronunciations of Chinese Hanzi characters can be mapped to syllables composed of Latin letters. Neglecting tonal distinctions, Chinese Hanzi characters are pronounced using an inventory of fewer than 500 distinct syllables, so inevitably many homophones arise. For example, the following Chinese Hanzi characters are all pronounced using the same syllable represented by the Pinyin “ji”:  (chicken),  (machine),  (basic),  (to hit),  (hunger), and  (accumulate). Clearly these Chinese Hanzi characters are all quite distinct both visually and semantically. To input a desired Chinese Hanzi character using Pinyin, users often need to peruse a potentially long list of possible Chinese Hanzi characters or words and select the intended one. This can especially be the case when the desired Chinese Hanzi character or word does not appear at the beginning of the list. As a result, inputting Chinese text using Pinyin can be slow and inefficient. Such inefficiencies can similarly be experienced for other languages where phonetic text input of one writing system is converted into a second writing system for display.